


The STARBoard

by kashinoha



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All the puns, Humor, because everything she does turns out to be awesome anyway, this is one of Iris's more spectacular mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 10:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5662561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashinoha/pseuds/kashinoha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris creates a side blog. It doesn’t exactly go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The STARBoard

 

 **A** **LL ABOARD** _**  
** _

By Iris West |  JAN. 7, 2016

 

Greetings, Central City. We all know what happened eighteen months ago over at S.T.A.R. Labs. The effects of this incident were even more fantastic than we had ever imagined, and they are still impacting us today—for better and for worse. The particle explosion brought us the Flash, but it also brought us the attack on Central City High’s football stadium, the Christmas bombing incident, and the hydrogen-induced singularity that cost this city over 2.5 million dollars in property damage.

Many of our lives have been changed, and in ways that only a select few outside this city would believe. For more information I urge you to visit _Dark Matter, Shaping the Genome_ by the late Harrison Wells before reading any further.

So this is your chance, Central City. Bring us your thoughts on these meta-humans. Love them? Hate them? Just need someone to talk to? If so, I give you the STARBoard. Everything on this page is anonymous and works similarly to a forum. I will be monitoring the posts so that we create a safe, virtual environment for all who need to get something off of their chests. Just create an account, pick a font, and start posting!

The future of science will never be the same. But more importantly, we will never be the same. It is my hope that we can help all of those affected. The more we understand about powered people and what they are going through, the closer we can get to helping them. To helping you.

  
________

_Iris West is a Journalist for the Central City Picture News. Follow her on Twitter, or like CCPN on Facebook._

 

 

 

 

 **Final_Frontier:** Bam, first post!

 **Final_Frontier:** So if any of you need a suit designed to fit your, ahem, special needs, S.T.A.R. Labs has some pretty sweet tech. Just sayin.

 **Foren6:** I thought you were supposed to be good at codenames, dude.

 **Final_Frontier:** Hey, it was better than nuclear_wessels.

 **Snow1:** Are you two seriously typing from the same room?

 **Final_Frontier:** He started it.

 **Foren6:** Shouldn’t you be locating the AHEM you know what? Go touch things.

 **Final_Frontier:** Well that escalated quickly

 

 

 

 

The waning day was frigid and filled with thick snowflakes that delighted in tormenting as many people as possible as they blocked the roads and driveways. Iris pulled up to her house and stomped the snow out of her boots with perhaps more ferocity than she intended, but today she had a rather good reason to be out of spirits.

Very few individuals could really, truly get under Iris’s skin, the most notable of them being her mother and on occasion Barry Allen. Most people knew to put a good distance between themselves and Iris when someone managed to piss her off (the exception being Barry Allen), but right now Iris was more upset at herself than at any one person.

Since angry bowling was out of the question in weather like this, she opted for the second best thing: pajamas and Ferrero Rochers.

Oh, and a phone call.

“Linda,” Iris groaned, balancing the phone on one shoulder while tying her hair up in a messy bun, “I screwed up big-time.”

The voice on the other end sounded alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”

“No, nothing like that,” Iris sighed. “It’s the Board.”

“Your blog? What’s the matter with it?”

Iris shook her head. “Linda, have you _seen_ the posts on it?”

“Yeah…?” Linda said, slowly.

“I thought it would be a good tool for—I don’t know, anonymous tips, locating metas,” said Iris. “My way of helping everyone out. But it’s just become…” she broke off, pursing her lips. There was a crunching sound on the other end, like Linda was eating something. Iris’s stomach rumbled once and she reached for a Fererro.

“Hey,” Linda replied, “relax, give it time. People are just having fun.”

Iris made a face. “That’s not why I made the blog. I just thought it would be more, you know,” she sighed again. “Useful.”

“Well, it kinda is.” Another crunch. “What about that guy who could, whatsit, stretch his body?”

Iris bit her lip. “Well I guess more people are coming out now,” she admitted. “But I didn’t create a forum just so people could post memes.”

Linda snorted. “I’m guessing that would be Cisco,” she replied. “So just delete them.”

“If it were only Cisco,” said Iris, disgruntled. She grabbed another chocolate and glared at it before unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth. “Cisco’s not even the worst of it. You have no idea how immature the people I work with can be,” she added, around the chocolate.

“You don’t say,” said Linda. Iris got the feeling that she was grinning over the phone.

 

 

 

 

 **18Stormchaser:** this city doesn’t stand a chance

 **18Stormchaser:** when I am free you will all die

 **Beethoven:** Uh-oh, looks like somebody woke up on the wrong cloud this morning.

 **Final_Frontier:** Oh you have got to be kidding me.

 **Beethoven:** Hola, chico.

 **Final_Frontier:** How do you even have wifi right now?

 **Beethoven:** あにきは元気ですか。 1

 **Final_Frontier:** Don’t even go there, man.

 **Final_Frontier:** You know I can hack all of your IP addresses in no time, if I wanted to.

 **Beethoven:** I know ;)

 **18Stormchaser:** the flash will be dead before long and there will be a new reckoning around here

 

 

 

 

 **Anonymous:** I don’t know really know how to say this, but this blog said it could help me. The thing is, I’m sort of growing squamae. I guess they’re scales? They don’t hurt, but I’m cold all of the time. And I think I, um, I might be venomous. Any suggestions?

 **Final_Frontier:** Would you say the squamae is more like a snake’s, or a lizard’s?

 **Anonymous:** snake’s.

 **Final_Frontier:** That is awesome. Listen, buddy, I work at STAR Labs (for real. I’m not a creeper, promise). My email is  Cisco.ramon@STAR.edu. Shoot me a message, and we can have a look at you sometime this week.

 **Final_Frontier:** —also, don’t bite anyone.

 **Anonymous:** Thank you!! I didn’t know what to do!

 

 

 

 

 _Post by Frostbite76_   |  JAN. 15, 2016

  
Greetings, Iris.

In your latest piece, _Obamacare for Meta-Human Criminals_ _,_ I agree with you on all but one point, which I shall briefly elaborate on here.

I have estimated, like you, that to provide sufficient medical services for all of these people, Central City taxes would have to increase by about 4.8%.

Here is how I see it: medical coverage for the meta-humans should be provided by S.T.A.R. Labs themselves, not by the good people of this city.

Have you ever considered that the people responsible should be paying out of pocket for their actions, rather than the victims? Now I am not a meta-human. I don’t have fancy feet like your friend the Flash, nor can I teleport or control peoples’ minds. But I happen to have met a few. And true, they are perfectly capable of hurting others, but they are also victims of circumstance (or should I say a rather colossal screw-up from the engineer department?).

A man who can set himself on fire, for example, may need constant paracetamol injections. Another who shapeshifts into other people may very well have borderline personality disorder that requires psychiatric treatment.

My current profession means I do not pay for much. Perhaps I may be overly sympathetic to the criminal class. Who knows? However. I do not believe in honor, but I believe in responsibility—what is ours, and what is not. The rest of us should not have to pay for this simply because a bunch of scientists got too excited. Not only is it wrong; it is cold.

While we may disagree on certain…moral issues, I do find your articles refreshing. So put in a good word for me with your pals over at S.T.A.R. Labs, and encourage them to start cleaning up their own messes.

  
Frostbite

__________

**Foren6:** Oh that is rich, coming from you.

 **Frostbite76:** Poor choice of words, Foren6. Need I remind you of your propensity towards providing certain criminals with their very own specialized weapons? You’re the ones that are rich.

 **Foren6:** Shouldn’t you be too, unless I am somehow forgetting the museum last week?

 **Frostbite76:** That was because you were too slow.

 **Foren6:** We’re not doing this now.

 **Frostbite76:** Let’s do it later, then.

_comment deleted by Iris_West_

_comment deleted by Iris_West_

 

 

 

 

 **Smoakonthewater:** love the blog, Iris. <3

 **Smoakonthewater:** one question, though/

 **Smoakonthewater:** why is there no option for emojis? You gotta have emojis.

 

 

 

  
**Anonymous:** hope some1 sees this. Only 1hand 2 type—store im at is being robbd. 10th and Dukes. Chick cn control pkants

 **Final_Frontier:** pkants?

 **Anonymous:** plants sry. Send help pls

 

 

 

 

 _Post by spivspd_ |  JAN. 23, 2016

  
When on the police force, it is sometimes difficult to tell fact from fiction. Someone comes in one day saying that their car crashed because a guy who could control the weather created an ice slick, another claiming they were framed for a drugs bust. One of these is true.

In my opinion, increasing meta-human awareness in the authorities should be a top priority. Many working at the CCPD are reluctant to believe in the impossible, even when the meta-human task force (MHTF) is an actual thing.

In reality, the MHTF consists of three people. Not a comforting thought.

We need to better understand what people affected by the particle accelerator explosion can do. Also, how they do it and why they do it. Police stations, prisons, and hospitals need to be better equipped, for starters. As helpful as S.T.A.R. Labs and the Flash have been for our city, it is time we started fighting back.

My first thought is to recommend mandatory courses on the effects of the explosion. We don’t even know if the cellular mutations sustained by dark matter are capable of being passed on genetically! Do we want our children in the dark? Do we want people afraid? Are we happy cowering in corners, waiting for one man to sweep in and save the day?

Second, we can collaborate with S.T.A.R. Labs to develop combative reinforcements (I prefer this term to “anti-meta-human weapons”) that will ensure safety. We have already seen this success with the Weather Wand and the Nitro-Proof Shields, developed by Cisco Ramon.

Although our crime rates are still miles behind those of Star City’s, many of us have lost loved ones at the hands of meta-humans. This is why it is better to be prepared and knowledgeable, as opposed to running in with a sidearm and dumb luck. We are thankful for the Flash, and hope that there will be others like him one day.

But until that day comes, it is just us. Fiction has become fact, and it’s time for us to make a difference.

__________

**ParksnSports:** Amen, sister.

 **Final_Frontier:** That’s the best they could come up with? Nitro-proof shields? Laaame. By the way great post, spivspd.

 

 

 

 

 _Post by Trix_are4_Kids_ |  FEB. 1, 2016 _  
_

  
There once was a kid, his name was the Flash  
Everywhere he went, he made a mad dash  
But do things too quickly, and soon you’ll see  
You’ll miss all the fun: everyone dead by ME!

__________

**Foren6:** Iris can you delete this please

 

 

 

 **Anonymous:** So is this shark man I’ve been hearing about Central City’s new urban legend, or is he the real deal?

 **Anonymous:** I saw ‘im outside Jitters once. Nasty ass fucker—I mean Human Centipede was bad enough but fusing a dude with a shark? Not cool, man

 **Anonymous:** well kinda cool. But gross

 **Anonymous:** real question: how does the guy eat a sandwich?

 **Anonymous:** hes probably a man-eating shark

 **Anonymous:** Then how does he floss? With your bones?

 **Anonymous:** I don’t think he flosses

 **Anonymous:** Do u think hes in the sewers chillin with Lyle the Crocodile?

 

 

 

 

Once the worst of the snow cleared, Iris really did go angry bowling. She dragged Barry along with her, if only to have someone to obliterate on the rink. Her lucky black ball decorated with gold swirls was waiting for her. Iris planted her feet, set her fingers in, and gave it a vicious swing.

Barry winced as all ten pins flew wildly into the air.

“Is this about the STARBoard?” he asked, when he was certain Iris did not have any immediate access to damage-inflicting weapons.

Iris blew a hair out of her eyes and turned around. “I should have just stuck with my regular blog,” she said.

Rubbing his face, Barry started, “Look Iris, I’m sorry if I—“

“Did you read that nut-job this morning?”

“I—“Barry blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Some religious fanatic,” Iris continued, walking back over to the machine to choose another ball. “Made a long post on how meta-humans were God’s favorites, how they were divine providence or some nonsense and the rest of us would be smitten on judgment day.”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “And you let that get to you?”

Iris set down the ball and slumped, the fight going out of her. “Yes,” she said, hands falling against her sides. “I thought the STARBoard would help people.” Her nose now wrinkled at the name. Why had she even chosen it in the first place?

Surprisingly, Barry’s mouth was turning up at one corner. “Hey,” he said, “Your blog is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.”

“Between the criminal chat-room, Flash-wannabes, and the physics LOLcats, I don’t exactly see how that is, Barry,” replied Iris. It came out more bitter than she intended, so she came to sit down beside him on the bench. Barry scooched to make room.

“So what, you’re not going to mention the snake girl, or the stretching man, or the,” he counted on his fingers, “four crimes we got wind of because of your site?”

Iris frowned. “Really? Four?” Barry nodded, and she started to smile.

“We couldn’t have done that without you, actually,” said Barry. “And honestly, Iris? It’s the most fun I’ve had in a really long time.”

Iris gave his shoulder a playful punch. “Is that so, _Foren6?”_

Shrugging, Barry replied, “Tell me, where else can I watch you beat down Snart?”

“Linda and I should do a team-up,” agreed Iris, laughing.

“Yeah, I’d hate to be on the other end of that,” Barry admitted. He nodded to the screen above them. “Speaking of which, want to get back to completely kicking my ass?”

 

 

 

 

 _Post by Iris_West (moderator)_ |  FEB. 14, 2016 _  
_

  
First of all, I want to thank all of you for your contributions to the STARBoard. You have not hesitated to express your thoughts, which I admire. I hope this site can continue to provide haven for those who have been affected, whether physically, emotionally, or financially, and can get people one step closer to the help they need. So thank you again for your contributions.

It is time to make this city a safer place. There are so many of us reaching out, unseen, unheard. The Flash is who we know because we see him on the news and drink his double-shot espresso at Jitters. But what about the other heroes out there?

This is the part where I could make some cheesy remark about stepping into the light. But actually, I don’t need to. The light is already there. S.T.A.R. Labs may have changed our home for good, but in the process it managed to create new stars: you.

 

* * *

 

1 "How's your brother?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to make this in the style of a blog, but I didn't know how to write my own HTML for the skin to do it. Anyway, here is a short, silly piece because it's cold out and people seem to be pretty stressed this week. Hope you enjoy!


End file.
